My college roommate Jane sent sent me this recipe. We’re going to try this tonight, and I’ll try and post pictures later, but wanted to post this now so others can use it too. I think our kids are just at the right age to begin understanding the story of Easter, and the hands-on and tasting will really help. Thanks, Jane!

(Updated Note: We did make these- it was a neat time with lots of discussion. I realized how challenging it is for young minds to understand why Jesus was crucified. When we did the vinegar part, Owen and Annie couldn’t understand why, when Jesus was thirsty, the guards gave him vinegar. Annie said, “Mommy, don’t worry! Owen and Annie will take Jesus some water!” I loved their hearts as they worried about Jesus, and look forward to them learning more and more in years to come how much Jesus worries after them.)

Ingredients:
1 cup pecan halves, to be broken
1 tsp. Vinegar
3 egg whites
pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
Also needed:  zipper baggie, wooden spoon, tape, and Bible

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  (This is important.  Don’t wait until you’re half done with the recipe!)

Place pecans in the zipper baggie.  Give children wooden spoons, and let them pound the pecans into small pieces.  Set aside.  Explain that after Jesus was arrested, He was beaten by soldiers.  (Read John 19:1-3.)

Let each helper smell the vinegar.  Then measure 1 teaspoon into the mixing bowl.  Explain that while dying on the cross, Jesus was thirsty and soldiers gave Him vinegar to drink.  (Read John 19: 28-30.)

Separate eggs.  Add the whites to the vinegar.  Eggs represent life.  Explain that Jesus gave His life to give us life.  (Read John 10: 10-11, 28.)

Sprinkle a little salt into each person’s palm, and let each one brush it off into the mixture.  Then they can taste their salty palms.  This reminds us of salty tears shed by those saddened by Jesus’ death.  (Read Luke 23:27.)

So far, the ingredients aren’t very appetizing; but now sugar is added, and you must trust that it will have a pleasant result.  Explain that the sweetest part of this story is that Jesus died because He loves us.  He makes it possible to know Him and belong to Him.  (Read Psalm 34:8; John 3:16.)

Beat with an electric mixer on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks form.  Point out the pearly white color, the color of purity in God’s eyes for those who have been cleansed from sin by Jesus’ death.  (Read Isaiah 1:18; 1 John 3: 1-3.)

Fold in nuts.  Drop rounded teaspoons of the mixture onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet.  Explain that each mound resembles a rocky tomb like the one in which Jesus’ body was placed.  (Read Matthew 27: 57- 60.)

Put the cookie sheet in the preheated oven, close the door, and turn the oven completely off.  Hand each participant a piece of tape to secure the oven door.  Explain that Jesus’ tomb was sealed.  (Read Matthew 27: 65- 66.)
(One more updated note: Our cookies didn’t cook. We realized that with convection ovens in Japan, they might not hold the heat like American ovens. So this morning we just cooked them. Suggestion would be for those using convection ovens to leave the oven on for just about 4 or 5 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave the door shut through the night).

Time for bed!  Explain that they may feel sad and disappointed to leave the cookies in the oven with the door closed.  Jesus’ death seemed final to His followers, and they were in despair when the tomb was sealed.  (Read John 16: 20, 22.)

On Easter morning, open the oven door and give everyone a cookie.  Point out the cracked surface of the cookies, and then take a bite.  The cookies are hollow!  On the first Easter morning, Jesus’ followers were amazed to find His tomb opened and empty.  He had risen!  (Read Matthew 28: 1-9.)

Yesterday Yasko, Claire, Annie and I went to a dance recital in Sanda. Five of our friends were in it… Sophia, Megumi, and three friends from house church. We were so proud of them all! Here are a few video clips and photos…

Sophia, who just turned 8 – was awesome.

And Megumi could move her booty!

Annie loved watching her friends up on stage, but couldn’t stop staring when she saw them close up…(our friend Minami is on the left; Megumi on the right).

Annie kept staring at Megumi, and finally she said, “Mimi, I thought less was more…?”

Megumi is like part of our family, and often stays with us on weekends. Annie has learned LOTS about putting on make-up from Megumi, and Megumi is always teaching Annie that “less is more.”

Now, when Annie does her little girl make-up with Olivia, Annie is always saying to Olivia, “less is more, Olivia. Less is more.”Somehow, though, it didn’t make sense yesterday. Because here Megumi was looking like a call girl… Megumi tried to explain that it was just a rare, special event. But Annie came home, still puzzled and the first thing she said to Eric was, “But Daddy, I thought less was more!”

There are exceptions to every rule…

Yesterday I read an article in Christianity Today’s online commentary that I receive by J.I. Packer. (Available here). He talked about the need as Christians to reflect on our life in terms of looking for life’s joyful surprises. In just looking at recent photos of the past two months, I realized how many wonderful surprises I have had — little, perhaps, but nonetheless significant. Despite generally not liking cold winter months very much, I realized how many moments of joy God has provided. Here are a few that are worth counting.
1. Owen with his kindergarten teacher and two friends… This coming week is Owen’s last of his first year of yochien/kindergarten. It has been such a great year; we may have had the best teacher in the school to help Owen, and our family, make this big transition. We love Hirose Sensei so much — she will forever be endeared in our hearts. On the right is Owen’s friend Suzuka, who Annie calls “my best friend.” Her family has become good friends with ours; her dad is studying English with Eric; her mom with me; they have been important keys to our building friends in the community.

2. All three kids saying goodbye on our front steps as some neighborhood friends were driving away…It has been fun to “host” neighborhood play parties here. We’re planning a farewell party next week as Owen’s class will be divided between two classes starting in the April new year.

3. Annie and Olivia getting ready to enter Owen’s school for his recital, and Owen performing. Watching Owen up front singing and performing in Japanese was a joy!

4. SNOW DAYS! We’ve had more than usual… and they’ve been great fun. Here is Olivia scraping her nose a bit too close to the playground stairs…(Honest – I didn’t do that to her – it really was an accident!)

5. Our family several weeks ago visiting the Osaka Aquarium… all five of us loved it!

6. This next photo was taken by our friend Craig C. at our spring retreat – somehow it just captures the joy of Olivia… she really does love life!

7. Finally, this photo was taken by our friend Faith at the retreat – she said she took it after hearing Annie singing out during our worship time. It’s been fun recently in the car as all three children have a favorite worship song that we take turns playing and singing together. How much I pray that God continues to give all three of our children a love for life, and a life full of worshipping him… and cultivates in my heart an ability to see these things.

Thirteen or fourteen years ago or so, I took a class at Fuller Seminary on Mentoring. It became a really significant class for me, and changed the way that I viewed relationships… recognizing that a mentor is not one ideal person who will meet all of our needs, but rather we all have a variety of mentors in our lives at different times who meet different needs.

As part of the assignment, I worked through a mentoring timeline beginning with childhood. I realized that there were a few people who had had a significant impact on my becoming a missionary during my early development – my parents; older Sunday school teachers named the Henemiers; and Beth Ann Smith, a missionary who had visited my Sunday School class one time and talked about her work in South America.

Somehow through that experience, we became penpals. Every few months, Beth Ann would take the time to send this little girl in New Jersey a beautiful postcard that showed the people to whom she was ministering. I remember one postcard had a real bird feather attached! And I thought: “She has the coolest job in the world! Maybe, some day, when I grow up…”

As I thought about her during this mentoring class, I wrote a letter to thank her for the influence she had on my life…. an influence she probably had no idea about. But I wasn’t able to find her address, even after looking online at different missions agencies.

These past few months, Eric and I have been considering different housing options in New Jersey, and through four different friends’ recommendations, we have decided to stay in a missionary community about 25 minutes from our family there. It’s called Cedar Lane, and we just found out yesterday via an email from the manager that they have reserved a 4 bedroom HOME for us that overlooks their spacious playground. I literally cried when the email came- it was so much better than we could have ever expected for those 5 months.  But I cried about another email that came that morning from the manager, as well.  She and I had emailed numerous times over the past month… she always signed her name “Beth.” Two nights ago, when doing a search on the mission community, I discovered – yes – the manager/secretary’s name is – Beth Ann Smith.

Here is some of the reply that she wrote to my email asking if she was, indeed, “my” Beth Ann Smith:  Just imagine what surprises the Lord has in store for us in eternity. This news was such a blessed way to start my day! Yes, I think I went to Collingswood Baptist only once to speak. My cousins used to go there. How blessed to know that it is His Spirit that works through us as we make ourselves available to Him. Now He is using you in the same way!! All the more exciting it will be to meet you when you come to Cedar Lane!

My childhood missionary mentor has been found. I will be living NEXT DOOR to her for five months! Isn’t God amazing? And it makes us realize… how many lives we can intentional touch…even in just one meeting.

 (For some reason I’m having problem with our blogging program for this entry- excuse the strange layout of the photos!)We just returned from a week in Snow Country!  We were up in the Nagano mountains in a fun little resort town called Karuizawa for our Asian Access annual conference.  While we never saw snow monkeys, which we see most years, there was some nice mounds of snow already there for the kids to play in and one snow day right before we left…  The highlight of the retreat, for me, was “family time.”  Family time meaning– this group of missionaries and Japanese staff are our family in Japan. We don’t get to be together very often, but when we are I feel so thankful for the beauty and diversity that God has brought to us.  In addition, our kids  had SUCH a fine time.  Coming home in the car yesterday (about 7 plus hours drive), Annie kept saying, “I want to go back to the ‘treat!”  They played, laughed; sang; ran around… and we had some fun family times, as well. Eric and I had been asked to plan a celebration dinner for Doug and Jeanie Birdsall, who have stepped down from their position as President of Asian Access in order to be Executive Chair of the Lausanne Movement.  It was really a neat privilege to plan – everyone who we asked to participate in one form or another did so with great enthusiasm because, truly, Doug and Jeanie are extraordinary people. Unfortunately, Olivia became ill during the beginning of the conference with a high fever and diarrhea.  And it just didn’t let up… she suddenly became really sick in the middle of the celebration dinner, causing us to make a quick decision that Eric would remain at the hotel dinner as MC, and I would take a taxi with Olivia to the Emergency room.  I was able to slip away with only a few people knowing, and was absolutely amazed that somehow I filled out all the (Japanese) paperwork at the hospital; Olivia was seen by the only doctor on duty in the hospital; we got some meds, and took a taxi back to the hotel in time for the last 30 minutes.  God was very gracious. She has continued having diarrhea, so today I took her to our local doctor where she received more medication.  But she is certainly perkier and much more back to her old self, although she seemed to have lost some of her pudgy cheeks this past week…A team came from Illinois to minister through worship and to provide childcare for our children.  Annie and Owen had such a great time in their classroom, and learned so much.  Our kids don’t get any kind of sunday school, so this one week is an important developmental time for them.  Here are some pictures of life, and family, happening in snow country (I actually didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked because I was holding Olivia much of the time!) One of my favorite images is this photo, below:Stacia B., in the middle, is standing between the two women who first visited her in the hospital after her birth. Her parents had just arrived in Japan; Dee and Harriet came to welcome Stacia to the world. After 26 or so years, all three were in Karuizawa for this retreat. Although their paths do not cross too often now, there is such amazing history, and love, in these enduring mission friendships. As I look at the photos of our children being hugged and encouraged by other adult missionary friends, I am confident that in twenty-plus years our paths will continue to cross with these special friends who are having such a wonderful infuence on our children’s lives.

I am the proud auntie of Isabella Norton, born on February 28th to my sister Allison and her husband Anthony. We’re so excited, and so are our kids…they keep asking when we can get in the car and go to see her. Since there’s no amazing bridge connecting Japan with New Jersey, it will have to wait until this summer…

Her birth was an emotional day for me. I didn’t realize how hard it would be NOT to be near my sister Allison on that day… when I found out she had gone into the hospital (she was induced one week after the due date because her blood pressure was too high), I felt like something was being ripped out of me… I had really wanted to pray with her before she went in (over the phone). Thankfully, I did have a chance to talk with her on her cell phone just after they had started the induction process.

On that same day, I was scheduled to share a testimony about my mom’s life, and death, in one of my English class chapel times. While driving to the class with my Christian friend Junko, I just broke down in the car and started sobbing. It felt too hard, with Allison going into the hospital for such a huge life-changing event while I was going to share about the very life-changing event of my mom’s death.

Somehow, the cry in the car helped, and I made it through the class and chapel time with just a few tears…but all the ladies were teary-eyed, as well. And I shared that on that day, my mom’s legacy would be continuing in yet another way as this special baby, my mom’s first birth-grandchild, was being born.

Welcome, Isabella! Now, in addition to Kaiya and Landen (Eric’s brother and sister-in-law, Ivan and Julie’s two great kids), our children have a new cousin!

One of the traditions that Eric and I try to do sometime around Valentine’s day is to go out to dinner (our favorite restaurant around here is an Italian one called Dolce Moscato) and spend some time answering the questions listed below. Usually I’ll print them out, cut them into individual question strips. and put them in an envelope. While we eat or drink coffee afterwards, we’ll take turns drawing a question and answering it. We have found each year this has been a great way to reflect on what has been good in our marriage and family, and specific areas that we can work on.

This year we went out several days after Valentine’s Day, and found these questions again really helpful. Eric suggested that others might benefit from these questions, as well. Feel free to copy and use these… Valentine’s Day might be over, but it’s never too late for a good date night. Hopefully this blog site will still be around in the future for anniversaries next year Valentine’s when you could find it again if you choose.

Enjoy!

1. My favorite memory with (child’s name) so far is….
2. My favorite Christmas memory together is

3. I like it when you ________, and I hope you do more of that this year!
4. The one thing I think our marriage needs is:
5. The love language that I’d love to receive more of right now in my life is:

6. These next few months, could you pray that God would make me more _______?

7. I want people to say this about our marriage:

8. I like it that our home is:

9. I love it when you:

10. The quality I think I need to work in my self is:

11. One time when you really came through for me was:

12. I think if we had a session with (counselor’s name) he/she would suggest that we work on:

13. Spiritually I’d like it if we:

14. One of the things I’ve come to love more about you since we’ve been in (location name) is:

15. One of the things I’ve come to love more about you since (child’s name) has come is:

One of the best things we’ve ever done together as a couple is:

One way I think God could grow our marriage is if:

What would you like to see the title of a book about our marriage be called?
What’s something I can do to improve our marriage?

One thing that I can do to improve our marriage is:

I’d like to make _____________ more a part of our marriage.

Now that we have (number) children, I’ve realized more that I want us to ______________.

One prayer request I have for our marriage is:

I think other people admire this about you:

One of the ways you’ve really blessed me recently is when you:

I’m so glad that God made you ___________________.

Something we can incorporate into our weekly schedule more is:

I’m so lucky to have you because:

My favorite memory with (child #2’s name) so far is….

My favorite memory with (child #3’s name) so far is….

Most moms in Japan feel a great deal of pressure when it comes to making lunches for their children. Often school leaders will tell parents that the time that they put into making their child’s lunch will show how much they really love their child. We love Owen A LOT…but we were greatly relieved that his Kindergarten provides school lunches so that our love wouldn’t be put to the test 🙂

Here are some of the more creative obentos, (lunchboxes)…each one obviously showing some lucky child a GREAT amount of love:

I have been thinking this past few weeks about habits…and how difficult it really is, or isn’t, to adopt new habits in our lives. I was thinking about it because I realized there are 3 new habits I have started and been continuing – and it brings me great hope that I can still change and learn and adapt in other areas of my life, as well…

As a result of thinking about these, we used this as an icebreaker question for our house church yesterday: What is a habit that you have recently started incorporating into your life?

There were some great answers – and EVERYONE had one. I’ll give you some of their answers first, and then share my 3 recent ones:

–Praying before I got to sleep at night (from a 12 year old!)
–Doing training exercises (ten each of squats, pullups, etc.) as well as drinking ginger tea every day
–Playing the guitar
–Hugging my daughter each morning as she leaves for school and eating yoghurt every morning
–Studying another language on our DS – portable gameboy (this was Eric’s – he’s been working on Japanese kanji!)
–Writing in a journal
–Drinking carrot juice every morning and drinking ginger tea three times a day instead of coffee (ginger tea was definitely a theme)…
–Doing kids devotions each day (from another 12 year old).

My 3 habits from recent months:
–I’ve been keeping a Ten-year journal for the past year or so- writing three lines every night before I go to bed… I hadn’t consistently journaled in many years- but it’s easy enough to write three lines… It’s been fun now that a year has passed since I began to read what I had written a year ago- i can imagine how much fun it will be in five or seven or nine years from now!
–I’ve finally figured out a good laundry system. Laundry is the bane of my existence, it has seemed, and it’s never under control. I’ve started doing a load of wash every night just before going to bed… when I wake up, I take down the previous day’s laundry (it needs to hang in our living room to dry overnight) – and then I hang up the new day’s wash. It’s working- and I don’t hate it as much!
–Keeping only one page of emails in my inbox… Several weeks ago I set aside a good number of hours to clean out my inbox -and I went through and filed or deleted over 4000 emails! Now, I only “let myself” keep up to one page of emails in there.

I get discouraged sometimes about the ways that I don’t change…so it’s been encouraging to think about and reflect with our community about how even more mature dogs 🙂 can still learn some new tricks….

Any new habits you want to share?

Eric and I have been talking, thinking, and praying the past few weeks about investments. Not the money kind… but what it means to invest in youth. We have three friends right now struggling with their junior high boys. It is so not easy — there are no easy solutions or “how tos.” One of these young friends, who is Japanese and lives in Sanda, has been struggling for some time, and stopped attending our church awhile ago. Eric has been taking him out every Tuesday night for English and mentoring. I realized that except for his parents, Eric is the only Christian adult who has been investing in his life in any real way.I have been thinking about an article that I read recently from Fuller Seminary’s Theology, News, and Notes on youth ministry (Fall 2007 by Kara Powell). Powell talks about a unique insight from Fuller professor Chap Clark related to youth ministry and adult/student ratio. “For the past several decades, youth workers have tried to maintain approximately a 1:5 ratio with students, meaning one adult for every five students. Chap suggests we turn tha ratio on its head and mobilize five adults to invest themselves into each teenager.”Powell goes on to elaborate on what that might look like: “That doesn’t mean each teenager gets five new Bible study or small group leaders. Rather it urges all adults to survey their neighborhoods and churches and prayerfully discern how to encourage the teenagers that are in their daily paths. Maybe it’s asking teenagers how they can be praying for them, and then following up the next week to see how the Lord is working. Or maybe it’s paying for a teenager to go to camp or helping a kid learn how to change a tire. Simply knowing a teenager’s name has been shown to positively influence that student (not to mention that adult and his or her church).”We’re so thankful for the community that we have around us here… Our children have some wonderful “aunties” and “uncles” who already speak into their lives. We’re not really interested in living somewhere if this isn’t the case –it’s a high value of ours wherever God might call us. But we keep asking ourselves who are the youth that God is putting in front of us who need us to speak into their lives… and how we can help our church, and our mission, build better community and be committed to the health of our youth. Not easy questions; but pretty essential investments.